Critical observations of print/broadcast/Web media plus public relations and advertising

March 18, 2013

After more North Korea missile testing over the weekend, a Feb. 12 nuclear test plus mounting saber-rattling and elevated tensions spurred by its young leader Kim Jong Eun, the Pentagon decided to strengthen U.S. defenses against a possible attack by the communist country by adding missile systems to protect the West Coast and Alaska, notes Grumpy Editor.

North Korea a few days earlier surprised the U.N., South Korea and U.S. by declaring the armistice that suspended Korean War hostilities 60 years ago was now invalid.

At the same time, it tossed in bolder rhetoric by threatening a nuclear strike on Washington.

With Washington’s sudden growing concern on North Korea’s long-range missile advances, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday said the U.S. will deploy 14 more ground-based missile interceptors.

These will be added to the current 30 long-range missile interceptors already in place in Alaska and California.

While news that the U.S. was moving ahead on additional defense measures grabbed headlines, overlooked by most broadcast and print media: the new interceptors won’t be in position until 2017.

For example, in missile defense story coverage, The Washington Post didn't mention 2017 until the 10th paragraph. On the other hand, The Wall Street Journal noted the year at the start of the second paragraph.

Meanwhile, focusing on the other side of the world and reflecting U.S. military and intelligence assessments, President Barack Obama said it would take Iran a year or more to produce a nuclear weapon.

Vogue cover again spotlights First Lady

Shortly after the election, buzz around New York and Washington was that First Lady Michelle Obama was behind a push to award top Obama campaign fundraiser and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour with a European ambassadorship, perhaps to Great Britain (Wintour was born in the U.K.) or France.

But the diplomatic post assignment idea faded.

However, Vogue’s April issue features Michelle Obama on the cover, in a “cobalt blue dress, with the line: How the First Lady and the President Are Inspiring America.

It marks the second Vogue cover appearance for the First Lady. She last appeared wearing a pink dress on the magazine’s March 2009 cover.

Wintour got a boost last week, though.

Condé Nast announced the Vogue editor in chief is taking on the newly-created additional position of artistic director of Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications.

Las Vegas Strip shooter remains in L.A.

Remember that widely-covered shooting spree on the Las Vegas Strip back on Feb. 21 that resulted in three people killed and five injured?

The delay, in part, was because the defense attorney (despite fingerprints and widely-circulated photos) requested an "iddentification hearing" calling on prosecutors to prove the person arrested in the case "is who they say it is." That Los Angeles Superior Court action occurred March 14.

Harris refused to waive extradition and his public defender asked authorities to produce a governor's warrant.

With that, the judge scheduled an April 12 hearing.

Stay tuned.

In case you missed these…

New Pope Francis didn’t waste any time meeting the press. On Saturday, at the media center flanking Rome’s St. Peter's Basilica at what some called “The Pope Francis Show,” he met and chatted with some of the 5,000 reporters from 81 countries --- then gave them a blessing… One America News Network, a 24-hour conservative-leaning cable news operation that partners San Diego's WealthTV with the Washington Times, is slated to start on July 1…Also with a July launch, Al Jazeera America, following its purchase of Current TV, reports more than 18,000 candidates applied for an initial 170 job openings…Britain’s Daily Mail presence is growing. It’s online audience in the United States swells to become larger than in the United Kingdom…Moving right along: U.S. intelligence officials warn of the rising threat of cyberattacks to national and economic security. It follows President Barack Obama’s concern in January’s State of the Union address, noting the “rapidly growing threat from cyberattacks"...Wrong site for an exciting typo. An ad on copyediting.com Friday: "Want an Exiting Career?" headlined a pitch for training as a trucker...Sale of Maxim, a male-oriented magazine, is being explored by Alpha Media.

February 11, 2013

Overlooked by U.S. media was an anniversary ceremony at
South Korea’s Osan Air Base last Thursday marking the U.S. Army’s last known
bayonet charge, known as the Battle of Bayonet Hill on Feb. 7, 1951, during the
“forgotten” Korean War --- which remains open ended, notes Grumpy Editor.

The National Newspaper Association notes about 30
percent of its member papers rely on Saturday mail deliveries.

Time
magazine subscribers receive the mailed weekly on Fridays or Saturdays. Bloomberg
Businessweek, which already is using alternate means to get its weekly
issues to some subscribers, figures a quarter of its subscribers will see mail
deliveries extended to Mondays.

The Postal Service figures ending Saturday deliveries
would help save the agency about $2 billion a year.

In
case you missed these…

The Weather
Channel stirs up its own storm by labeling the weekend northeast blizzard Nemo. Turning thumbs down on the name
include the National Weather Service and independent meteorologists…Look for
President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address tomorrow to work in
the often mentioned-for-months line:
The economy is heading in the
rightdirection…Not a good time
for copy editors. The sharp-eyed word/fact/grammar watchers are
sacrificed more than any other newsroom personnel --- with a 50 percent
reduction in the past five years…No major headlines, as a Navy budget is being considered in Washington, on how the Navy’s fleet is down to 287ships, the smallest American armada
since the early 1900s. A 2010
independent panel called for a fleet of 346 ships…The Washington Post Co. signs an agreement to sell its Herald, in Everett, Wash., daily it has owned since 1978.

May 31, 2012

Cheers to two newsmen from The Sun, London, who used ingenuity in posing as businessmen to get a truer inside look at North Korea without being shadowed or escorted as journalists, notes Grumpy Editor.

The second part of the story --- by writer Alex Peake with photos by Simon Jones --- runs today in the British newspaper.

The pair entered from China, crossing the border into what they called “the crumbling town of Sinuiju” where Peake noted “many of the people here are starving.” Also, he added, “Nobody was smiling and most people were walking alone in a zombie-like state, staring at the floor.”

From there, a 200-mile, six-hour journey on a chugging 1940s-era train took them to Pyongyang.

In the capital city, their hotel room featured a TV set and “airtime on one channel filled with pro-regime propaganda including hours of footage of new leader Kim Jong-un watching military displays.”

They toured the town, saw statues, rode on the Pyongyang Metro, sampled a Big Mac-lookalike which Peake declared, “God only knows what the meat is, there was no way it was beef.”

Peake noted less than one percent of North Koreans own a car “so traffic jams are non-existent” and that most of Pyongyang “is plunged into darkness at 11 p.m.”

The Sun writer also observed blue vans with megaphones patroled streets in cities and countryside blaring the message: Work harder.

March 26, 2012

Within hours of Air Force One’s landing in South Korea, President Barack Obama --- sensing a photo op with the presidential election less than eight months away --- was peering through binoculars toward North Korea yesterday in his first visit to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which has bisected the peninsula since the Korean War cease fire almost 59 years ago, notes Grumpy Editor.

Chances are North Koreans had binoculars trained on the president who wore an identification badge reading: Barack Obama, Commander in Chief.

Reuters said Obama “spent about 10 minutes on a viewing platform at the DMZ, talking with some of the soldiers on guard as the flags of the United States, South Korea and the United Nations flapped loudly in the brisk, cold wind.”

With print and broadcast media trailing his movements, the president visited the DMZ on the eve of a global summit on nuclear security hosted by South Korea.

“You guys are at freedom's frontier," Obama told about 50 troops crammed into a dining hall at a U.S. camp near the DMZ, one of the world's most heavily fortified frontiers.

The Korean War remains open ended with no peace treaty signed. Battles ended with a cease fire on July 27, 1953.

The Korean War, also labeled the “forgotten war,” erupted when 135,000 communist North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea in pre-dawn hours of June 25, 1950.

For the U.S., the war resulted in 36,940 military deaths, 103,000 wounded, 8,142 missing in action and 3,746 prisoners of war.

Prolonging the war were entries of communist Chinese soldiers battling U.S. troops on the ground and Russian pilots in Soviet-built jets fighting U.S. airmen.

Chinese troops killed or captured thousands of U.S. military personnel and managed many prisoner of war camps in North Korea.

Obama was threatening to cancel planned U.S. food aid to North Korea following its announcement that it plans to launch a long-range rocket next month.

February 22, 2012

Look for media to play the long-running six-nation talks --- tomorrow in Beijing --- focusing on North Korea nuclear disarmament like something is finally going to break, but Grumpy Editor feels it’s likely to be ho-hum time again.

Nuclear talks regarding North Korea have been going on for years.

The only hope is the change in North Korea’s leadership since Kim Jong-il died in December.

The latest session will measure if Kim’s son and successor, Kim Jong-un, is more open to diplomacy.

The six nations --- South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the U.S. --- have been sitting around tables, off and on, for more than nine years trying to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Recent talks (last July in New York and three months later in Geneva) made no progress.

North Korea’s routine has been to talk, followed by pauses, then more talks, followed by no resolution.

That’s been the Communist nation’s procedure since 1953 when the Korean War ended with a cease fire. North and South Korea technically remain at war with no peace treaty.

One reason nuclear disarmament talks get nowhere: North Korea, Russia and China are on the same side.

It’s been that way since the Korean War, in which Russia and China joined North Korea in fighting American and South Korean troops, among other allied forces.

After this week’s Beijing discussions, it will be interesting to see if media reports include (again) these words: deadlocked, impasse, inconclusive and recessed without agreement.

January 18, 2012

Look for more direct news reports out of North Korea now that Associated Press opened a news bureau this week in Pyongyang, becoming the first international news organization with a full-time presence in the communist nation, notes Grumpy Editor.

AP says the action capped nearly a year of discussions.

The move comes less than a month after the death of longtime ruler Kim Jong Il.

The opening of AP offices in the capital mark an “important gesture, particularly because North Korea and the United States have never had formal diplomatic relations,” points out AP.

Now, AP writers and photojournalists will also be allowed to work in North Korea on a regular basis, says the news agency. For decades, it adds, North Korea has remained largely off-limits to international journalists.

Offices are located at state-run Korean Central News Agency’s headquarters in downtown Pyongyang.